That was the outward event that made a change in Katie Jean’s life at that time. But there was also another more interior change that came to pass. Katie was dismayed to find that her customary monthly blood did not come flowing from her the way it always had. She waited to see if perhaps it was taking somewhat longer, as on occasion it had done before. But truly there was no sign of it. She thought of the casual indiscretions she’d committed with Tom, and started to tremble a little with thoughts of what she’d done. She was altogether feeling more tired in the nights, and then one morning when she woke coughing up her last night’s meal she roused herself to a good bout of bashing her stupid self for ever getting mixed up with a man who’d run away as soon as he’d kissed her, and then another good bout of wondering whatever she could do about the trouble she’d inflicted on herself now. She didn’t feel this problem was in the nature of one she could discuss with Tavish, and much less with Madam Lanchester, because she’d have her out of the house if she ever found out, so her only confidant was Tommy Dog, but his begging eyes and twisted paws gave no indication of the right route to follow. She found herself walking through her chores, looking sideways at her days with the hopeful thought that at some point in the future she’d be able to look back with the grandest sort of satisfaction on how she’d sorted this problem, but with the most desperate kind of worry in the present as to what she was going to do.
In her walks through the town she started having a feeling that the people were no longer quite the people she had known. At first she was liable to put this down to her own moods, which had become a little bit flitty, fleet and darting and at times seemed a bit wounding even to her. But she couldn’t dissolve away the sounds of broken crockery, and the harsh edge to the words she heard spoken, and the way sometimes the housewives looked at the blades of their knives and contemplated their husbands’ throats. So she found herself taking her stick along for even the shortest walk through the town. And once Tommy Dog was up to it, she’d take him along as well, though what protection he could offer was a question she hoped not to have answered. One time she had to drag him snarling from a mop of black hair and a vindictive pair of eyes she remembered well. Let that clod follow me, she thought. I beat him once, I’ll beat him again if it’s what he’s a mind to. But there was no mistaking the feeling that something was coming. It was in the air. Like the rumble of distant thunder that startles the stillness of a quiet afternoon.
While Katie was taking pains to settle her troubled heart, Tom, adrift on the ocean’s tumbling currents, was coming to terms with his cabin mates. Where work was to be done on deck Vincenzo, who had the other lower bunk, was the best and most to be relied on seaman any could hope for. His agility at mounting the mast to reach the rigging was unequaled, and the speed and dexterity with which he would tie and untie the sheets had impressed all the crew most favorably. There was, however, about him a darkness and a willingness to hurt that made him one to be approached gingerly. The incautious were likely to find themselves on the pointed barb of a sarcasm, or apprehensive of some elusive yet undefined threat that had come tantalizingly close to actual expression. He was mostly to be found in the company of two others of similar makeup, one Diego, the surgeon, and the carpenter, who went only by the name of Mr. Chips. The first evening out from port there was a brawl on deck and a seaman was stabbed in the forearm. Diego had ministered to his patient as best he could, cleaning the wound and applying several stitches, but the Master had berated him for the unsteadiness of his hands, and this put him in a foul humor. He was recounting the events to his two mates, and Tom happening to pass at that moment, he thought he might take the opportunity to start a fight, so he asked Tom why he’d jostled his elbow, and when Tom answered there’d been no jostling, Mr. Chips inquired if Tom was calling his friend a liar.
Tom said, “There’s been enough nonsense for one night. I don’t see the need to be manufacturing more.”
At this Vincenzo took on himself the role of peace keeper. “Now, friends, Tom’s my cabin mate. Like he says, there’ll be no nonsense.” He gave a sly smile. “There’s no need for us to be doing harm to one another. The wind and the weather are up for that, surely. A wet spot on the deck at night, and a man could slip and be overboard before he’d ever have the chance to holler ‘chuck.’ Or a sheet that’s a little frayed up top, where no notice is given, suddenly a man’s falling twenty feet head first and breaking his neck. Why should we be fighting one another when there’s already distress and destruction waiting at our heels?”
“Thanks, friend Vincenzo, your reassurances leave me feeling a good deal more fearful than I was before.”
“Hah,” and he gave Tom a poke in the ribs and not a gentle one, “you’ve no need to worry. I can assure you if ever it should happen that I’d want to do a man in, he’d have no warning of it beforehand.” He winked and passed on.
Tom’s other cabin mate was a native of Slothikay who’d taken the name of Brutus. His face, like that of many from that region, was disfigured by a multitude of tattoos, in particular an open staring eye in the middle of his forehead, a decorative motif favored by many from that district. This, as well as what was perceived as a casual regard for discipline, had put him under a bit of a cloud with the Master. However, he was by nature gentle as a lamb, and Tom had found him knowledgeable in his discourse, with a surprising sagacity and a scientific understanding not to be expected in one of such meager learning as his appearance connoted. He also bore with him always a small idol of Maddibimbo the one-eyed monkey god he reverenced, and in the evenings would frequently bow down before it and offer up prayer in a pagan tongue Tom could not comprehend. The idol was a hideous figure of a hairy monkey with a long tail and one lonely eye set in the center of its head. The hole representing the eye had in the past been filled with a chip of green glass, but this had fallen out and gotten lost shortly before shipping out on the current voyage, an event which Brutus apprehended was a portent of some calamitous consequence. He had been many years on the sea and had acquired a thorough knowledge of boats and tackle and rigging and all things maritime, but more than that he claimed acquaintance with certain mysteries of the pelagic depths, and asserted that he was on a familiar footing with nautical powers that some seamen regarded as illusory.
Tom and Brutus would sometimes discourse on the roundness of the world and the stupidity of men, in the mornings when the sun was shining brightly and the ship was turned into the wind so the salt surf sprayed into their faces and the chop dumped them first up and then down. One such morning they were washing down the deck when Tom, tearing himself from his inner visions of Katie, inquired of Brutus why it was that a man with such a surprising depth of knowledge as himself had labored so many years and yet had not risen above the level of a common seaman. Tom was certain that Brutus’s accomplishments merited a greater distinction than that which he possessed.
“The answer is a simple one, and can be given in one word,” was Brutus’s reply.
“And what word would that be?”
“Rum.”
“And a fine word too. A word fit to be held between the teeth and to sit on a man’s tongue.”
“To some it is.”
“In your case, Brutus, I’ve not observed you to be a drinking man. Or perhaps you’re one of those so accomplished in the art of imbibing that the effects are not evident, and you’re walking about all the day with a skinfull of comfort and no one the wiser.”
“That would not be me. I’m a brawling and a battling drunk. I’m a bitter and a bashing drunk. I’m truly better sober, but always I have the thirst. I’m a man of many faults, though I strive to amend them.” And then he sat for a moment, looking at the bucket of soapy water before him. The only sounds were the calls of the seabirds, and the creaking of the rigging, and the slop of the waves against the hull. Ramsey strolled by, casting an eye in their direction. Ramsey, Tom had concluded, was a man consumed by some inner struggle or antagonism, one he never spoke of, but
which gave evidence of itself in facial twitches and fidgets of his fingers. This morning he seemed lost in an internal soliloquy and it’s questionable whether the presence of Tom and Brutus registered on his conscious mind as he made his rounds of the ship. After he had passed aft, Tom took one of his silver dollars from his pocket and tossed it in the air. It was ever his idle habit to intervene in the tussle of the heads and the tails. He made note of the fact that this morning tails were in the ascendant, and replaced the coin in his pocket.
Then, seeing Brutus had paused to watch what he was doing, he explained, “Just a thing my hands like to do. My fingers want some occupation other than growing the fingernails.”
“Growing the fingernails . . .” He chuckled and resumed his work. “There are many things like fingernails, things that grow, and would not stop . . . There are things that would cover the entire world if they could.”
“Yes . . . And I think I know what you’re speaking of. They’re called ideas.”
“Actually I was thinking more of a sponge, like this one.” Tom looked blank. Brutus went on, “Your sponge lives forever by making more of itself. “In that way it’s like your fingernail.”
“I see.”
“It’s the first trick life ever taught herself. Divide and conquer.”
“Now that I don’t see. What’s your meaning of divide and conquer? I’ve washed with many a sponge, but how does it divide, and whom will it conquer?”
“These sponges were torn from an animal – I’ll reconsider – not an animal – from a sea-fungus that was born and still lives and goes on living,” said Brutus. “The first living thing, so the wise tell us, was a single cell. That cell divided, and there were two cells identical to the first. So like they were, they were the one thing.”
“Right. I’m with you.”
“And those cells divided again, and so on. What I mean when I say divide and conquer. So the first cell is still living, and all the other cells are the first cell as well.”
“Very good. So that’s the divide, but where’s the conquer?”
“Your sponge continues to live until it is destroyed, but never will it die. The cells of the sponge divide, the sponge grows larger and still larger. If there was nothing to stop it, the whole world would be one sponge.”
“Brutus, it’s a pleasure to converse with a philosopher such as yourself who’s inspired by a sponge and a bucket of soapy water.”
“There are lessons in everything, if only you look.”
“Never was spoken a truer word.”
There was a pause as they moved to another portion of the deck, wringing suds from their sponges and stretching their backs.
“Life’s second trick was a bit more perplexing. To this day we’ve never yet seen to the bottom of it. Life’s second trick was to die.”
“And a foul trick that was, I’m thinking,” said Tom.
“And certain it was not.”
“. . . I should have known there was a paradox lurking. So make your meaning known.”
“Without death there would be no reproduction by means of sex,” said Brutus.
Tom could not fathom this. “I’m not quite following you. I’ve had sex, but I’m still alive. Not to dispute a philosopher so lofty as yourself, but you might want your philosophy to correspond in some degree with the actual facts and daily events of existence. Not that sex has been a daily event of late.”
“Tom, at some point, so the wise tell us, a living being, instead of reproducing itself by dividing, united first with another being. The active blood of the male united with the passive blood of the female to form a third being. The third being was a reproduction of neither the first two; it was an individual unto itself. And the two parents still lived, until they died, and they passed altogether out of existence. Unlike the sponge, who is always with us. So in this manner love and death were brought together into the world at one and the same moment, and since that time there’s no having one without the other.”
“Your explanation is clear, and I’ll confess it’s a wonder I never thought to see it that way myself.”
“Truly they are the two sides of the coin that fate and chance are always tossing.”
“So they are . . . ”
And with confabulations such as this and others, Tom found a place among his mates. The days were bright and clear, and the work was tiring but bracing as the Queen of Bel Harbor sped on her way towards the port of Kashahar.
Chapter Three
A FRESH PAIR OF BOOTS
The traveling man sat in the loggia of the Trento Hotel and looked with great sorrow on the ruin of his shoes. Since the night he’d let Tom get the better of him and haul his shoes away on the cart, they’d undergone a transformation for the worse. They’d spent the night out in the rain and been covered with mud, and that hadn’t done them as much good as you might imagine. After he’d recovered them and worn them a bit they’d repaid him by giving him blisters, and rubbing the skin raw on several of his toes. He was altogether dissatisfied with his footwear, so when they’d reached Trento, still a day and a half from Indradoon, he’d sent Fergus in search of the best boot maker the town could offer.
It hadn’t taken him long. He’d returned with a cordwainer named Smith who had measured his feet and had also proven to be a fount of information. Smith informed him that a gang of slaves had escaped and set up a camp in the vicinity of a vast and gloomy swamp not far to the southeast, judging that the difficulty of the terrain would deter most pursuit.
“Are they likely to be finding more recruits?”
“See that one?” Smith pointed out a gentleman who was accompanied by a slave bearing a lamp. “See how close he’s keeping his slave? I don’t actually see the chain, but I feel as if it’s there, and he might almost seem to be making haste to reach his destination. Never before have I seen the masters in a hurry. The Marshal’s the one supposed to round up any who get away. Our Marshal – “ here he spat, “he’s put his strategy in place. He’s got hisself so drunk he’s locked in his own jail. Seems he plans to observe these heinous reprobates from that post, and he’s well prepared to capture any that should stumble into a cell.”
“I know the plantation owners have their own teams of men.”
“Don’t they. And they would like to replace those with slaves also. Have the slaves keep the slaves in line, but they haven’t figured out yet how to make that work. So there’s still some employment for free men, mostly bravos from the coast or the odd castoff from the army.”
The traveler contemplated the town square with its venerable palms and colonnades. “How would I find my way to the encampment of these freed slaves?”
“They are not freed. They are escaped.”
“Sorry. Where is the encampment of these escaped slaves?”
“Why would you go there? I wouldn’t if I was you. They’d slit your throat as soon as look at you.”
“Why would they try that? I’ve little they could steal.”
“I only know they have much to fear, and when men are afraid they look for someone they can hurt.”
“You’ve learned that lesson wrong way front. We look for those that are afraid so we can hurt them, like wolves to a deer. Do we not?”
“But why would you want to go among them?”
“I have a great work to do and they are a weapon ready to my hand. Mankind has a passion for destruction, but from time to time needs to be pointed in the proper direction.”
“No, creation, not destruction. Of all living creatures, man is the one that makes.”
“And what he makes is destruction. The boots you’re making for me, are they made to last?”
“Of course they will last. The boots I make are of the very finest quality.”
“But they will wear out in time.”
“They will last you the rest of your life.”
“And after my life, what then?
“After your life, why do you care?”
“So what
man makes, he makes for just a little time, because he knows he will die. He knows all he creates will perish. Every brick he places on top of another, another will come and knock down. Nothing will last. The children demolish what their parents put up, and they call this progress because every step forward is a means to destroy more and yet more. He says I’m making the greatest civilization the world will know, and he looks about and sees only the things he’s wasted and used up. If God is the creator, man is the destroyer. And I’m just here to help him along. So can you show me the way to these escaped slaves?”
“If you’d like, I’ll show you tomorrow when I return with your boots.”
So now he sat, awaiting Smith’s reappearance and enduring Fergus’s rendition of a popular ballad, accompanying himself on the banjo. He sang,
My mother was a Western woman
Skilled in grammary,
She taught me young to pluck the harp
The sword was not for me.
The words she sang still haunt my mind
Her antique voice still charms,
As I wander the world in search of a love
And a woman to hold in my arms.
Trento was a small town set amidst miles of cotton fields. At its center sat a paved piazza lined by rows of palms. There was a fair amount of money and commerce in Trento, though not immediately apparent, being wealth of a lazier, less bustling variety than that found in Port Jay, which he’d just left, the sort of wealth that could sit down and appraise itself in the mirror and think Damn, I’m good looking. Think I’ll just set here awhile and take in the view.
When Smith arrived, the new boots of cordovan leather were found to be quite acceptable. The traveler walked them up and down the piazza, gave Fergus his obligatory kick, and then pronounced them decent. Setting off with Smith his boots were christened in the swampy waters of a grove of mangroves, this being the difficult terrain Smith had spoken of.
The Devil's Workshop Page 3
